In loving memory of my grandparents, Tante Vilma, Tante Lies, Oom Theo and ons meter. - Hugo Wolf, Abschied (Mörike-Lieder, Nr. 53) Promotor Prof. dr. Gunther Martens Vakgroep Letterkunde Copromotor Prof. dr. Benjamin Biebuyck Vakgroep Letterkunde Decaan Prof. dr. Marc Boone Rector Prof. dr. Anne De Paepe Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Tobias Hermans 'Das Zeitalter der unnützen Complimente geht nach und nach zu Grabe': Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner as Musikkritiker Proefschrift voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van Doctor in de Taal- en Letterkunde 2016 Acknowledgements Ghent, 06.09.2016 Legend has it that Mozart wrote the overture to Don Giovanni the night before it premiered. Writing these acknowledgements hours before handing in my dissertation, I surely feel sympathetic to his plight. Of course, any comparison to the master immediately ends there. Still, I can only be experiencing the same feeling of excitement as I am extending these words of thanks to the people who have supported me throughout this dissertation, and well before that time. For it is thanks to them that these past four years turned out quite differently than things did for the protagonist of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Of one thing I am certain, indeed: this dissertation will not come back to haunt me. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the criticus optimus, my promotor, Gunther Martens. For the past seven years, I could truly always count on his help and counsel. Every time I knocked on his door (sometimes my singing in the hallway, perhaps, was already a reliable herald of my arrival), the door swung open. This dissertation gave me the chance to collaborate more with him. During those four years, we taught courses together, organised conferences, edited a volume, ... – opportunities for which I am more than grateful. The road the past seven years took us from Wilhelm Müller over Beethoven and Schubert to Schumann and Wagner. I am greatly indebted to you for always letting me chart my own course and supporting me. I also wish to thank the members of my Doctoral Guidance Committee, Benjamin Biebuyck and Francis Maes, who always made time for my questions, doubts and concerns. During my research, moreover, many people outside of Ghent University selflessly advised me. I am truly thankful to them all and wish to extend an explicit token of my gratitude to Marshall & Jane Brown, Jan Christoph Meister, Márta Grabócz, Carl Niekerk & Laurie Johnson, Fritz Breithaupt and his hospitable research group of Indiana University, Mark Janssens (Klara) and Luc Joosten and Piet De Volder (Opera Ballet Vlaanderen). v vi Of course, any acknowledgement would be void without a word of thanks to my colleagues. Deborah and Thijs, the merry moments in 106 were extraordinary, in the many meanings of the word. Thank you Maaike, Saartje, Zoë, Thorsten, Carolin, Helena (éy-éy), Wendy, Elke, Warda, Sigrid, Nico, Mahdiyeh and Linde for your encouragements (and for putting up with my singing). I also wish to mention my fellow representatives on the board of the Literature Department and of the Faculty as well as the library staff, who were always so kind to turn a blind eye on the many books I kept taking from their shelves, while giving very little of them back in return. I submit this dissertation in the hope of being awarded the highest educational degree in the country. This text, however, would not have been possible without the dedication and care of all the teachers that have educated me during the past twenty-four years. I would like to sincerely thank the faculty at Rinkeling, Maria-Boodschaplyceum and Sint- Lievenscollege, and my teachers of German, Doris Dossche and Hans Boussery, in particular. A word of thanks is furthermore due to my friends. Mieke, there was a time when we would sigh, in bouts of infatuation with Shakespeare, that ‘fortune woos against us’. Looking back, however, I feel we did quite well and I know that, to a large extent, I have you to thank for those successes. I also thank my friends for their patience and interest in ‘what it is that I do there all day long’. I promise you that I will soon be able to regale you again on an evening of fine and subtle Antillean cookery. Koen, thank you for assisting me as your sidekick, Mathieu and Tim, for checking up on me when I all too easily let days become weeks, and Celine, for the pleasant strolls with biological appelflappen. My acknowledgements have taken on proportions that I had not foreseen and I have yet to mention the great debt of gratitude I have incurred to the people that have always mattered to me the most. And even if no quantity of words can ever capture my recognition, I dedicate these pages to them. Thank you, mama en papa, for your truly endless and unwavering belief in my abilities. If anything, this dissertation is a testament to the many interests you selflessy, and despite our setbacks, not only enabled, but also encouraged me to pursue. Joshi en Nathan, among the many fortunes of my life, I count having you as brothers as the greatest one. For I have experienced once more these past four years that whatever challenge I meet, I always have you to count on. My final words of gratitude go out to the Clara of this dissertation. Dear Liesbeth, you were at my side (almost) from the very beginning. So even if it is quite natural that I could not have imagined writing this dissertation without you, that does not take one bit away from my appreciation for your support. Thank you for your love and patience, and the soft embraces when I needed them – you are truly ‘mein guter Geist, mein bessres Ich’. vii List of Figures Figure 1 The architectural metaphor makes way for a horizontal rendition of the musical progression. .................................................................................. 186 Figure 2 Text and footnote, references and musical examples vie with each other. ................................................................................................................... 187 Figure 3 Idem .................................................................................................................... 188 Figure 4 Text and musical notation are semiotically on a par in Florestan’s examples of humour in music. ........................................................................ 218 ix Table of Contents Préambule .......................................................................................................................... 1 Part I: Writing ‘Musikkritik’ .......................................................................................................................33 ‘Musikkritik’ in the Public Sphere ............................................................... 35 1.1 The notion of ‘Kritik’ .................................................................................................... 36 1.2 ‘Musikkritik’ as Institution of the Public Sphere ..................................................... 41 1.2.1 Habermas & Koselleck: Forays into the Public Sphere ............................... 42 1.2.2 The Function of ‘Kritik’ .................................................................................... 52 1.2.3 ‘Musikkritik’ as Discourse ............................................................................... 59 1.3 Schumann and Wagner Enter the Scene ................................................................... 67 1.3.1 Schumann .......................................................................................................... 67 1.3.2 Wagner ............................................................................................................... 76 1.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 84 Shaping the ‘Musikkritiker’ ......................................................................... 87 2.1 The ‘Musikkritiker’: Discourses of Identity .............................................................. 89 2.1.1 The Identity of the ‘Musikkritiker’ ................................................................ 90 2.1.2 The ‘Kritiker’ as Discursive Agent ................................................................ 101 2.2 Schumann: Pseudonyms and Self-Competition ..................................................... 120 2.2.1 What Schumann? ............................................................................................ 121 2.2.2 Self-competition ............................................................................................. 126 2.2.3 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 134 2.3 Wagner: From Correspondent to Visionary ........................................................... 137 2.3.1 Wagner as Correspondent in Paris .............................................................. 137 2.3.2 A Visionary in Retrospect: Oper und Drama ................................................. 152 2.3.3 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 170 2.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 173 xi Intermezzo: The Unsayable rendered sayable: ‘Musikkritik’ as the Debunking of Romantic Musical Aesthetics. ................................................................................................................................... 175 The Romantic ‘Unsagbarkeitstopos’